Wine List Printed Menu

Most people love to throw dinner parties for their friends and family. But, they may avoid serving wine because they do not know exactly what to serve. Do you serve red or white with fish? Will Merlot be okay if you are serving a Mexican dish? Do not stress over it – there are some basic wine rules you can follow.

The number one rule of thumb when choosing wine is “red wine with red meat, white wine with white meat.” This is not always true, but it generally works quite well when you are unsure. One exception is chicken. The meat is white, but a nice fruity red wine goes well with it. The same can be said for tuna or salmon, so you do not have to always follow the rule of not serving red wine with fish. The second rule is the rule of complements. It is okay to match sweet seafood such as lobster with a sweet white wine. The next rule is the opposites attract. While you usually want to match like flavors, sometimes a contrast, such as a White Bordeaux with bluefish can be wonderful.

Outside of the basic rules, there are certain things you can look for and certain things you can avoid depending on what you are serving. Here are some hints as to what to serve with particular types of food.

Salads and Appetizers

You should avoid serving wine during your salad, as vinegar and wine do not mix well. But, if you are having an appetizer, you need to consider the ingredients in the appetizer to help you choose your wine. If you are having a cheese tray, the type of cheese will help you determine the wine. For example, cheddar is best with dry reds, Merlots, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Pinot Noir goes best with Swiss. Camembert and brie are great with a Chardonnay. The cheese we tend to think of as Italian such as parmigiano, romano, and reggiano go well with Italian dry red wines like Chianti and Barlol. If you are serving something a fried appetizer, consider serving a crisp, fruity white or red wine to help cut the oily flavor.

Beef, Steak and Lamb

Do you remember the “red wine with red meat” rule? That one is great to use when serving beef, steak, and lamb. Choose a dry red wine like Cabernet Sauvignon or a burgundy like Pinot Noir. You can also consider serving an Italian red such as Barolo or Chianti.

Fish and Seafood

To be safe, stick with a dry, crisp white wine. Sauvignon Blanc goes well with white fish while Sancerre and Muscadet go well with oysters. If you want to be different, try a fruity red wine (without tannins). But, use caution when serving red, especially if you are serving white, delicate fish. Cabernets with tannins combined with fish can leave a metallic taste in your mouth.

Poultry, Pork and Veal

For the most part, you want to follow the “white meat, white wine” rule with these. White chardonnays and Pinot Blancs are great. If you want to serve red with chicken, remember to choose a wine that is fruity like a Merlot or Zinfandel.

Turkey

Think back to Thanksgiving. Do you remember how well your cranberry sauce went with the turkey? The same rule applies here. For turkey, since it has both white and dark meat, you want something fruity and tart such as a Beaujolais for red or a Riesling for white.

Spicy Foods

If you are planning on service something spicy like Thai or Indian food, a sparkling wine works best. Avoid wines with tannins and look for something fruity. And, make sure the wine is well chilled. Cold wine goes well with spicy foods.

Dessert

The best thing to serve with a delicious dessert is a dessert wine. In fact, you can skip the dessert part and just serve a dessert wine to your guests. These are sweet wines often sold in smaller bottles as you don’t drink as much dessert wine as you do regular wine. Wines such as Sauternes, Beerenauslese, Bermet and Cammandaria will make a great end to any evening.

The most important rule about what wine to serve is to avoid being snobby about wine. There are no right answers, only basic rules to go by and even those, as you have seen, can be changed. Do not be afraid to experiment with different tastes. Chances are if you do not act like there is anything wrong with the wine you are serving, your guests will not either.

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Dinner Party: The New Entertaining

I go back to this cookbook time and again and I am never disappointed.

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Be My Guest: A Collection of Kitchen Tested Menus… for Those Who Love to Entertain

Be My Guest: A Collection of Kitchen Tested Menus… for Those Who Love to Entertain Feature

Be My Guest: A Collection of Kitchen Tested Menus… for Those Who Love to Entertain Overview

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Rebecca Lang’s Southern Entertaining for a New Generation

Reviewed by Cynthia A. Olvera for Reader Views (7/07)

As a proud Southern Woman, entertaining friends and family is one of my greatest joys. As a young Southern Woman, “Rebecca Lang’s Southern Entertaining for a New Generation” makes entertaining my friends and family as easy as making a cake (see page 174). And while the title directly addresses a new generation, I believe all generations of hosts/hostesses will benefit from this incredible book.

The pages are filled with great sections that will help anyone pull off the perfect party including wine basics, serving basics, and a great section that helps answer the age-old question “to RSVP, or not to RSVP.” It even covers little problems that most hosts may overlook such as the appropriate flow of the party through your home and how to seat a table to maximize conversation for successful mingling.

The absolute BEST parts of the book are the timelines that help even the busiest people plan for parties of any size. It’s FANTASTIC! Last month my best friend turned thirty, and, of course, we just had to throw her a surprise birthday party. All of sudden, however, our guest list jumped from 15 to 30, and almost overnight, it jumped to 45. Thanks to Rebecca’s timelines, it didn’t matter how many guests we were going to have, because we were prepared for them all! We held a fun Seafood Supper (see page 144), and followed all the recipes mentioned and we followed the timeline. The party was a huge success, and I believe it was not only the fantastic people in my home, but the superb timeline and information in this wonderful book.

Here are my final thoughts on “Rebecca Lang’s Southern Entertaining for a New Generation” — Southern cooking is special. It is traditional and usually passed from mothers to daughters or grandmothers to granddaughters. The fact that Rebecca has dedicated this book to her grandmother, and she has included many of the family recipes her grandmother passed to her, is nothing short of beautiful. It is a wonderful homage not only to her grandmother but to true Southern family tradition. I felt as though I was sitting across from Rebecca herself in my kitchen sharing stories….as Southern women do. Thank you Rebecca!

I have recommended “Rebecca Lang’s Southern Entertaining for a New Generation” to many of my friends who are very pleased with their purchase, and if you enjoy the true Southern tradition of hosting in your home, whether it’s an intimate dinner party or a large fiesta, you absolutely NEED this book.

Rebecca Lang’s Southern Entertaining for a New Generation Feature

Rebecca Lang’s Southern Entertaining for a New Generation Overview

Thanks to Rebecca Lang’s Southern Entertaining for a New Generation, you no longer have to be raised in the South to entertain your guests with the hospitality of a Southerner. Designed for her own generation’s needs, this creative book on entertaining is packed with tips and hints for easier cooking, and timelines to simplify the process of entertaining. In short, it’s about how to host parties with less stress while serving food as good as grandmother used to make.

Unlike most books on entertaining, the chapters are organized by the time of day in which a party is scheduled. The recipes are easy enough for the novice cook, and timelines are included to make sure that all of the food will be ready at the appropriate time. Each step is listed by the exact time of day at which it should be done, even when to run the dishwasher.

The chapters all contain three or four party themes, each with recipes, serving piece suggestions, detailed timelines, and grocery lists. Some recipes even list lighter ingredients that can be substituted for high-fat ones without compromising taste. Each menu also includes wine suggestions to lessen the stress of choosing wine, even suggesting which glass to use and what to do if the host doesn¹t have enough wine glasses. Because so many young adults lead busy lives, the menus also include shortcuts in case there isn’t enough time to make the entire menu from scratch.

One of the most helpful features of Rebecca Lang¹s Southern Entertaining for a New Generation is that the book provides serving suggestions for younger cooks who don’t yet own all the serving pieces they need. “There is no reason not to host a party because you don¹t have enough china,” she insists. “You can still have a great time by using some of the fun, creative suggestions in this book.”

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Wine

Wine is the perfect drink for a wide variety of situations, from dinner to special occasions to romantic settings, even to backyard barbecues. Indeed, wine is one of the world’s most widely consumed alcoholic beverages. Wine is a drink made from fermented grapes, and comes in a variety of tastes and colors based on the type of grape used to create the wine. One aspect that makes wine different from other beverages is the importance of aging. Many wine drinkers are intrigued by the wine making process and the length of time required to make quality wine. For this reason, vineyard and winery tours are popular tourist and recreational activities.

Wine tasting for beginners

There is a lot more to tasting wine than simply tipping back your glass. Indeed, there are five main steps to assessing the quality of wine, and only two of them actually involving drinking any wine. This method of wine tasting is often given the pneumonic key “The Five S’s: See, Swirl, Sniff, Sip, Savor.” The steps include judging the color, swirling the wine in the glass, smelling the aroma of the wine, sipping and tasting the wine, and savoring the flavor to test how long lasting the taste is in your mouth.

To avoid getting tipsy when testing wines, which can color your perception, most wine tasters do not actually drink the wine. At events and wineries, wine tasters may receive a spittoon into which to spit the wine, or may be asked to simply spit the wine onto the ground if it is an outdoor tasting.

A variation of tasting is blind tasting. Blind tasting involves offering a taste of the wine without allowing the taster any indication as to the wine’s origins or makeup. This usually means presenting the wine without allowing the taster to see the bottle, know the name or the date of origin, and, in some cases, even see the color. In those instances, the wine is often presented in a black or otherwise dark glass.

Many connoisseurs of wine and wine tasting travel around the world to some of the most notable wineries and vineyards on the globe in order to participate in wine tasting and winery tours. In many instances, wineries may offer tastings of their vintage wines and other more notable wines for a higher price.

Different types of wines

Wine is usually categorized in relation to its place of origin and/or type of grape. Pinot, Chardonnay, and Merlot are examples of wines named for their grape, while Willamette Valley wines and Napa Valley wines are common examples of wines named for the region where they are made. In some cases, both the production region and the grape variety are used in the name of the wine, which offers wine connoisseurs an idea of the wine without ever having to taste it.

When classifying wines, much depends on taste, use, and presentation. Red and white wine, for instance, are commonly matched with different types of food: white with pasta and poultry, and red with red meats. Red wine is made with grape skins, while white wine is made in the absence of grape skins. Other wine variations include sparkling wines such as champagne, cooking wines, table wines that are often less expensive, and many other variations.

Where to store your wine

If you are a wine collector or connoisseur, or indeed run a winery or vineyard, it is important to maintain a wine cellar. A wine cellar is essential for preserving the quality and taste of your wine. Cellars can do this by maintaining a constant temperature and humidity, and keep the wine in darkness. Temperature fluctuations and exposure to heat and light can cause wine to spoil and lose its best attributes. Not only do cellars keep the wines from spoiling, they can also improve certain wines by bringing out its aroma and flavor.

Where does wine come from?

The world leader for wine production is Italy. Indeed, the images of generations-old wineries and vineyards are almost synonymous with the Italian countryside and street side bistros. After Italy in terms of the volume of annual wine production is France and Spain. The United States ranks sixth in the world, with the vast majority of the wine coming from the vineyards and wineries of the California valleys.

Everyone loves wine

There is an interesting link between references to wine in popular culture and spikes in interest in wine and wine tasting, even to specific types of wine. A perfect example of this is the 2004 surprise hit Sideways. In many European countries, however, interest in understanding and appreciating wine has been ongoing for centuries, and needs little boosts from pop culture references. Other notable wine-laden films include French Kiss, A Walk in the Clouds, and many others.

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